Trying Python

I'm gonna give Python a try!!

I've been using Ruby as my scripting language of choice for about 3 years now. It is a great language and I learned a lot using it. However, there are 2 problems that I have with Ruby.

First, its Windows support isn't great. For basic things it works wonders, but when you get beyond that there are a lot of things that Ruby on Windows doesn't do so well. Some of the more interesting gems do not run well (or at all) on Windows. Even some of the standard libraries that ship with Ruby don't work on Windows and don't get me started with some of the core library methods that don't work. It also seems that everything with Ruby runs slower on windows -- very frustrating.

Second, it seems to me that more and more the Ruby community has an attitude that if you aren't running nix then it doesn't matter. This is a real shame, Windows is a huge market. I use Windows for development, most of my clients use Windows so dropping it for a better OS isn't an option. The community as a whole is struggling with this issue but there doesn't seem to be a good solution right now. Check out these (here, here and here) other blogs for some interesting info (the comments are interesting as well).

So I'm gonna try some options and see what is what.